1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical terminal for use in an automotive wiring harness connector and, more particularly, to an electrical terminal which has a stabilizer in the wire connecting portion thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A known electrical terminal for automotive wiring harness connectors has an electrical terminal portion and a wire connecting portion. The wire connecting portion includes conductor crimping ears and insulation coating crimping portion. The wire connecting portion further has a substantially U-shaped stabilizer provided at the end of the insulation coating crimping portion remote from the electrical terminal portion. A typical example of this electrical terminal is disclosed in JPY 63-28865 (1988). The stabilizer of this electrical terminal is adapted to engage with a groove in the connector when the electrical terminal portion is mounted on the connector, so as to prevent any rolling of the terminal. Alternatively, a spacer is fitted in the stabilizer so as to securely fix the electrical terminal to the connector.
This known electrical terminal, however, suffers from a disadvantage in that, due to insufficient gripping force exerted by the insulation coating crimping portion, any axial tensile force applied to the electrical wire, particularly when the force is applied in an impacting manner, is concentrated to the conductor crimping ears so as to undesirably allow the conductor to come off the terminal or to be broken.
Another disadvantage encountered with the known electrical terminal resides in that free ends of the pair of legs of the U-shaped stabilizer tend to be deformed away from each other when impact force is applied in the direction orthogonal to the wire, with the result that the wire gripping force of the electrical terminal is reduced.